Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-03-19
A MONOGRAPH.
ATERSE PRESENTATION OF "THE
AMERICAN QUESTION"
The Evolution of Our Governmental
Policy, and the Necessity for
Restricted Immigration.

lengthy and able paper upon the subject,
by w. H. Mills, recently read before the
,Clit-Chat Club of San Francisco, and which
was printed by the society for use of its
members. The Chit Chat Club is composed
Of a number of leading writers and think
ers, who meet monthly for the discussion
of leading topics of the day and for
mutual criticism upon papers present
ed. The entire monograph is too ex-
tended to permit its publication in full,
but the portion selected, and here present
ed, will afford an Indication of the princi-
pies upon which the consideration is based,
and the necessary conclusion drawn. After
a review of the evolution in civilizations
and governments of older countries, reads
the following;
The earliest settlement of our country
was ola dual character. The Puritans and
the Cavaliers who, while living under the
same civil polity, exerted a modifying in
duence upon each other, settled in differ
ent, and at that time remote, parts of the
territory constituting our national domain.
Relieved of external pressure, the colonies
of Plymouth and of jamestown became
the sources of two distinctive civilizations.
The Puritan planted his deep religious
convictions, his love of freedom of con-
science, his austere morality, and his claim
to the right to worship God according to
the dictates of his conscience, and to force
upon others that worship which the Puri-
tan conscience approved. The Cavalier
brought his love of light pleasure, his spirit
of adventure, his chivalrous sense of honor,
and the enfeebled religious conviction
which makes a state religion not only pos
sible, but a necessity. Both confronted a
wilderness of unknown and indefinite ex-
tent which might become to each the the
4ter of empire The year 1920 witnessed
two coincident events-frst the landing of
the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock; second,
the landing of cargo of slaves at the
mouth of James river. HenceforwArd, pro-
found conviction in all matters civil and
religious were to run parallel course with
temporizing expediency. Henceforward,
the colors of the two civilizations were to
appear-the dark shadow of slavery upon a
Cavalier background, and the brilliant
lights of liberty upon a Puritan back
ground. Two hundred aud forty-five years
later, on April 7, 1865. two armed hosts
confronted each other upon the soil of the
Old Dominion. The one was commanded
by Robert e. Lee, the other by U. S. Grant.
Both of these great leaders were patriots,
as God sees the earnest motives which
make men loyal to the civilization of which
they are product, and true to the country
OF which they are citizens. Behind each
stood arrayed the valor and the manhood
OF the two contending sections. Stretched
far out behind this closing scene of the
drama were the unbroken chains of action
connecting the day with the events of 1920.
The event of jamestown under Lee sur
rendered to the event of Plymouth under
Grant.
For quarter of a century since the cur
tain fell on the closing scene of that mighty
struggle, the southern section has remained
in unpatriotic solidarity, supported in its
pretensions by the foreign vote of the
North. Thus for a quarter of a century
we have had government proceeding from
3 section of the country only, and the re-
curing issue of each Presidential election
has been simply which section, condition
from which not even the subtle and fasci-
mating jingoism of Mr.. Blaine could re-
Eeve us.
1t is now 266 years since the primitive
colonial settlements of this country; and
while it is true that our political independ-
.sace is but Ill years of age, the evolution
of our civilization from the standpoint of
native growth and environment is 266
years of process. From the inception of
the colonial period to the adoption of the
Federal Constitution we have had 1853 years
of process. The civil, religious, social and
moral institutions of the country, as they
exist Under the Constitution of the United
States, were therefore 1853 years in forma-
ton. Under that Constitution we have had
nearly century of experimental growth
and development. The American question
is: Has all this time, all this diversified
history, all this growth, developed here no
distinctive nationalism to which the sub
jects of European and Asiatic monarchies
are foreign, alien and by hereditary apti-
tude and instinct proceeding from the
civilization which evolved them-antago-
nistic? The American question is: Have
we passed the colonial period of our exist
enoe, with its alluvial loosely laid deposits
of heterogeneous life, and have we entered
upon the granite formation of well-devel-
oped civilization, with its attendant politi-
CAL religious and educational institutions,
conforming to the law of evolution to a
specific environment? If we have reached
the plane of American nationalism-if at
last the elements of individual life in fusion
have blended into a homogeneous whole,
then we may receive that into the body
petite that which will interrupt the true
processes of evolution toward higher planes
of national greatness, and retard if not
wholly arrest the progress of this nation
aIism.
With a vast continent to people and sub
due, We invited the doWn-trodden and OPP
pressed of all nations, not because they
were down-trodden and oppressed, but be-
cause there was ample room for all, and
because to all appearances the accession of
n Iand-holding citizenship was illimitable.
IT was the natural appeal of the vortex, the
instructive invitation of the vacuum. The
evils of an over-populated country were so
remote as to present the appearance of a
dreamy hallucination. Apprehension had
effected loan of disaster on very long
credit, both the interest and principal of
which are maturing in our day.
We have founded government based
upon manhood suffrage. We have reared
the edifce of our civil liberty upon the en-
during principle that man is endowed by
his Creator with inalienable right, and that
so secure these governments are instituted.
BY this we declare that the citizen is not
the slave of the government, but that the
government is the servant of the citizen.
We have asserted both the right and the
capacity of man for self-government. We
have proclaimed the principle that man is
the highest authority in the government
We have erected barrier to absolutism in
government by the PRONUNCIATION of the
doctrine that man Is possessed of inherent
rights which are his TO exercise beyond and
ABOVE governmental interference. We have
limited governmental interference with the
absolute freedom of the citizen to that de-
gree of reasonable restraint only which is
consistent with the welfare of organized
society. Two principles assail the founda-
ton of this government. The one is the in
herent tendencies of all governments to
Capitalization and absolutism. The other,
and the more insidious foe, is communism.
Absolutism divests men of natural rights,
and substitutes therefor the extension of
privileges. Under all forms of absolutism,
whether republican or monarcbical, the
citizen has no rights, but rather such privi-
Eeges as the government in its muniicent
generosity may extend. Communism con-
Terts the citizen into slave of the COM
1monYealth. The natural endowment OF
capacity is merged under the plea of elimi-
mating disparity of condition. Thus sloth,